I don't understand the folks why folks here rip on people that use canned/prepared food in their cooking. Say you're making chili- are you going to crush your own tomatoes? Soak and cook the beans? Grind your own beef?
I'd say it depends on the food in question, really.
Take your tomato example: ideally I would have fresh good-quality tomatoes, and yeah, I'd crush them or chop them up myself. On the other hand I almost never have access to those. Supermarket tomatoes generally suck, so I'd almost certainly end up using canned tomatoes. In my experience the good Italian canned ones are far better than the supermarket type.
For beans? Sure, I'll soak em. Dry beans are much cheaper than canned and I always have a bunch in the pantry anyway.
Beef? I prefer to use larger pieces of beef than ground. I normally buy a couple of steaks, grill them to get some color on there, then coarsely chop 'em up.
>>7211816
>putting beans in chili
I see what you did there.
But I'll still take the bait.
>are you going to crush your own tomatoes?
If it's summer and you have a garden full of them you'd be a fool not to.
>Soak and cook the beans?
Since I got a pressure cooker I got away from buying canned beans. They do have a distinctive "canned" taste that you don't notice if they're all you ever know. It's slightly unpleasant.
>Grind your own beef?
That's out of reach for most people, but it's nice to do better than meat that was ground and packed at the slaughterhouse. Those of us with access to an actual butcher do better than those dependent on the supermarket meat counter.
>>7211816
>I don't understand the folks why folks
Of course you dun understood gud.
>>7211816
>canned
At least once a year, I like to make some of my famous Chili. The trick is to undercook the onions. Everybody is going to get to know each other in the pot. I'm serious about this stuff. I'm up the night before pressing garlic and dicing whole tomatoes. I toast my own Ancho chilies. It's a recipe passed down my family for generations. It's probably the thing I do best.
>>7211816
>are you going to crush your own tomatoes?
Canned tomatoes are awesome.
>Soak and cook the beans?
Most people don't, but the texture of canned is fine in chili, whereas in most other applications soaking beans the night before really does make a texture improvement.
>>7211816
>Grind your own beef?
For chili, the primaryargument is whether to use cubed chuck or ground beef at all, not how coarse the beef is, so this argument doesn't matter. (The other argument is beans vs no beans which is stupid really, cause they're both good, and people need to get over the poverty vs abundance idea and enjoy the flavor and texture differences instead).
>>7211816
>crush your own tomatoes?
yes
> Soak and cook the beans?
yes
Grind your own beef?
I use top round cut into pieces but I have a meat grinder
>>7211886
ccccombo breaker
also: fazolis
>>7211841
>If it's summer and you have a garden full of them you'd be a fool not to.
Thats cool if you live on a rural farm
>>7211882
Is there really any application where any sort of bean preparation is good, its always just shitty filler
>>7211890
I have a backyard garden with 12 tomato plants that gets me 30lbs of tomatoes without fail every year. all you can eat fresh tomatoes from July-Sept. Old wop guy I know cans 4-5 cases every year from his 1/4acre backyard in the middle of Boston
>>7211890
Tomatoes are easy as piss to grow in a pot or in a garden, and they grow upwards so their footprint if potted is tiny.
>>7211891
It's all about how the beans are cooked and seasoned. The beans themselves don't taste of all that much but they do soak up the cooking liquid & seasonings, which makes that all-important. Try cooking some dry beans with some good homemade stock.
>>7211890
I live in the city and have a raised bed garden behind my building. It's pretty small, but enough to give me tomatoes all summer and into the fall, and fresh herbs up until winter. Just plant that shit, put tomatoes in cages and remember to water if it hasn't rained in a while. Pretty easy even for a city dweller.
And given that good heirloom tomatoes sell for $4/lb in the farmers' markets the cost of materials pays for itself halfway through the season.
>>7211816
get a pressure cooker and have fully cooked beans in an hour. Buying canned beans at least is a complete waste of money.
>>7211816
Subtle bait.
>>7211816
>beans
>ground beef
>tomato
>>7211816
>I don't understand the folks why folks here rip on people that use canned/prepared food in their cooking.
Every corner you cut makes your food less good than it could be. Once you get to a Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade level of cooking you've pretty seriously degraded whatever dish you set out to make. That may not matter to you if time and convenience are your primary concerns - like a busy person trying to feed a family in a hurry.
But when that kind of degraded food becomes the standard for what you eat you've set your standards pretty low. And that's something people who are actually into food and cooking will rip on others for doing. Because settling for mediocre food is epidemic in America, and it's not one of our better national characteristics.
>>7211816
Food should always try to be as fresh and pure from preservatives as possible. That's the main point that should come across from all the purists bitching that a recipe is wrong or not done traditionally. Not because of health reasons, although that's a fortunate byproduct of eating fresh, but because it makes the food taste better. If you're some asshole who eats food like a garbage disposal, eat whatever the fuck you want, you're never going to enjoy subtle flavors like true food enthusiasts and chefs do. If you're going to cook fresh, you need to savor every bite and not just shove it down your fat sack.
>>7211816
Everyone on this board has eaten canned foods and the majority still eat and cook with canned vegetables. If they tell you anything otherwise then they're a lying sack of shit
>>7211891
>Is there really any application where any sort of bean preparation is good, its always just shitty filler
I can gobble up a cold marinated bean salad, or some fresh soaked beans on a bitter green salad. A homemade bean soup has a thick texture like none other when blended. Some of my favorite things are bean centric, such as big giant lima beans cooked with a ham hock, or peppery-good black eyed peas fresh picked. A creamy mollete with golden broiled cheese on top of a sourdough roll, with a side of fresh salsa is a wonderful warming breakfast with a mug of atole.
Get over your idea that beans are peasant food. They're just another crop to be enjoyed right, and savored for their differences. A big bowl of cuban black bean soup can be naturally sweet and foiled with a squeeze of lime, and enjoyed with a soft delicate cuban garlic toast, pressed til crisp faced.
>>7211816
Having latino parents, there is always a pot of beans ready to go.
>>7211816
I wont grind my own beef or spices but it's easy to do the rest.
Ground beef in chili? Sacrilege.
>>7211816
>putting tomatoes and beans into chili
fucking pleb.
Proper chili is basically just taco meat.
>>7214060
>Proper chili is basically beef cubes cooked in fat, salt and ground, dried and probably roasted capsicum pepper - onions, cumin and oregano optional, but encouraged.
FIFY
>>7214119
Correct me if I am wrong, but that is taco meat.
>>7214129
If you live in a place that does beef tacos well. For about half of America "taco meat" still means ground beef browned with some kind of seasoning blend from a foil bag dumped into it.
Like goulash, pizza or bbq the definition varies widely by region.
